


Flying

by emynn



Series: 2016 Winter QAFestival [3]
Category: Queer as Folk (US)
Genre: Kid Fic, Other, Pre-Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-03
Updated: 2016-12-03
Packaged: 2018-09-06 06:27:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,762
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8738305
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emynn/pseuds/emynn
Summary: It feels like flying.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Written for my Winter QAFestival for the prompt: happy moments in Brian's childhood, like his first crush in kindergarten

Brian digs through the lost and found box, throwing the books and scarves and other odds and ends over his shoulder as he goes. Where _was_ it? He’d had it at recess, he remembered that. But when he went to get it from his cubby at the end of the day it was nowhere to be found. He’d checked all around the classroom and the hallways, even ran back outside to check by the swingset where he’d been playing. And now it seemed it wasn’t even in the lost and found box, and…

Brian rips off his jacket. He’s hot, way too hot, and his heart is beating so fast he feels he’s about to be sick. He has to find his hat. He _has_ to. His dad would --

“Hi Brian.”

Brain turns around. Somehow, in that instant, that burning feeling in his belly is replaced with something far more pleasant. It reminds him of eating macaroni and cheese, when it’s all warm and gooey and makes him feel so _full_. 

“Hi Jake,” he says. He wants to say more, like how he liked Jake’s sneakers, or that when he was watching the older boys racing at recess that day he was happy Jake won, but for some reason saying hello is all he can manage. 

“I got something for you,” Jake says, and pulls his backpack around in front of him. He unzips it, then pulls out Brian’s hat. “I saw you drop it coming back in from recess.”

Brian breathes a sigh of relief. “Thanks,” he says. He takes the hat from Jake and quickly pulls it down over his head. He can’t risk losing it again. 

Jake smiles. “No problem.” He zips his backpack up again and slings it over his shoulder. “Are you walking home? I can come with you, if you like. I only live a block over from you.”

Brian pauses. His mom always tells him to walk home with Claire. But she always complains about how she’d rather go with her friends, and Brian doesn’t really like walking with her either, so she’d probably prefer it if Brian left without her. And Jake’s in the second grade. Usually the big kids just called the kindergarteners babies and wanted nothing to do with them, but Jake brought him his hat back, and smiled at him, and now is offering to walk Brian home. He can’t pass that up. Jake could tell him _so_ many cool things. 

“Yeah,” Brian says, and smiles back at Jake. “I am.”

~*~

“C’mon, Brian! Go!”

“No!” Brian shouts back down the slide. “I’m being the town watchman!”

Emily plants her hands on her hips. “You _have_ to, Brian! There’s a _line_. We have to take turns!”

“Yeah, and it’s still my turn!” Brian says. “You can go down the slide when I’m done.”

“But you’re not even going!”

“I will when I’m done!” Brian says, and turns around so he doesn’t have to look at all those annoying girls anymore.

He likes it up here. He has the perfect view of the big kids’ playground, the one on the other side of the school. It’s far away, but he can just make out Jake’s bright red hat. He’s on the swingset with all his friends, and they’re pumping their legs so hard it looks like they’re all about to take flight. Brian can’t take his eyes off of them. He wishes more than anything he could be on the other playground with them. He likes Jake much better than any of the other kids in his grade, and his friends probably didn’t do things like whine at them to take turns.

Brian sighs and drops his chin onto the rail of the slide. For some reason, he can’t stop thinking of Jake. Probably because thinking about Jake is the only thing that really makes him feel good. Thinking about his family only reminds him of shouting and bruises, and thinking about school puts him to sleep. But thinking about Jake makes him smile, because Jake does things like meet up with him on the walk to school and give him candy and tell him funny stories about all the teachers. 

And when Jake smiles at him, Brian gets these funny feelings, like somebody is tickling him but it’s coming from the inside. 

Brian likes that. 

On the other playground, the older children are climbing higher and higher into the sky. Jake and his friends… they’re not scared of anything. Some days Brian’s even seen them jump from the swings. It seems so exciting. Brian decides at that very moment that he’s going to be more like them. And he’s not going to wait till he’s older. He may be little, but that doesn’t mean he can’t be brave. He’s going to start being more like them _right_ now. 

“Brian Kinney! Come down from the slide this instant! You know you have to take turns.”

Brian sighs. On the other playground, he sees the kids are now leaping from the swings. He bets they’re laughing, imagining they’re like Santa’s reindeer, flying high in the sky. 

He can do that too.

“Yes, Miss Lawson,” he says. Then he turns around on the ladder, stretches out his arms as wide as they can go, and jumps.

~*~

“Can I sign it?” 

Brian shrugs, but it’s taking everything he can not to smile. “Sure,” he says. “You got a pen?”

Jake nods. “Stole it from art class,” he says, and takes out a purple marker. “So you really broke your arm?”

“In three places,” Brian says proudly.

“Cool,” Jake says, bending over a bit so he can sign Brian’s cast. “That was a really tall slide you jumped from.”

“Yeah,” Brian agrees, although he can’t believe Jake’s actually saying that. The slide was on the little kids’ playground. Jake probably has much bigger ones on his. Brian’s slide is nothing. 

“Why’d you do it?” Jake asks.

“Seemed like it would be fun,” Brian says. 

Jake nods. “I bet. Was it?”

“Yeah,” Brian says. “Felt like flying.”

“I feel like that when I jump from the swings,” Jake says. He stands up and pops the cap back on the marker. “Did you get… sometimes, right before I jump, I get really nervous. Like I’ve got Mexican jumping beans in my belly. But that makes it even better when I actually jump. Did you get that too?”

Brian looks down at where Jake signed his name, along with a smiley face with a thought bubble that said “Feel better soon, Brian!” Truth is, he feels like that now, even with both his feet on the ground.

“Yeah,” Brian says. “I got that too.”

~*~

It’s the last day before school lets out for the holidays. The rest of the kids in Brian’s class are excited, talking about how they have a whole week off and all the presents Santa’s going to bring them, but Brian would rather stay here. A whole week stuck in his house with his mom hushing him for interrupting her soaps and his sister crying about whatever was upsetting her that day is nothing to look forward to, and it’s not like Santa ever brought him much anyway. The only thing Brian could really hope for is that his dad disappeared again. He has a habit of doing that over the holidays. It makes his mom cranky, but Brian figures one cranky parent was better than two. 

Brian zips up his jacket and heads outside. Maybe the week’ll go by fast, and before he knows it, he’ll be back with --

“Hey, Brian! Wait up!”

Brian turns around to see Jake running up to him. “Jake!”

“Hi,” Jake says. He’s a little out of breath, but he’s smiling. “I got something for you.”

Brian instinctively pats his head with his hand, relieved to feel his hat securely in its place. “Yeah?”

“Here,” Jake says, and hands him a tin with a giant snowflake on them. “Christmas cookies. Me and my mom and my sister made them.”

Brian peeks inside. There are cookies of all kinds -- chocolate ones, ones with sprinkles, ones shaped like stars and bells and Christmas trees. It makes his mouth water just looking at them. “Thanks.”

“I wanted to give them to you when Claire wasn’t around,” Jake says. “That way you don’t have to share. I always hate it when I have to share with my sister.”

Brian grins. “I’ll hide them from her.”

“Good thinking,” Jake says. He pauses. “Are you going away for Christmas?”

Brian shakes his head. “No. We never go anywhere.”

“Neither do we,” Jake says. “I was thinking … maybe you could come over to my house sometime? And we can play with all our new toys.”

Brian feels the back of his neck burn. Jake always has nice clothes, and Brian’s seen him sneak so many different toys into school. Usually Brian only gets a couple of things for Christmas, maybe a truck or some Legos or something cheap that breaks almost immediately. He wants to go to Jake’s, more than anything, but he doesn’t want to go and have nothing to show off, or for Jake to think he’s a loser for not having any cool new toys.

“Or we can just play outside,” Jake continued. “I hear we’re supposed to get a lot of snow. We could build a fort. Maybe make it super high and then we can jump off it! Only you wouldn’t have to worry about breaking your arm again ‘cause you’d just land on snow.”

Brian smiles. Flying through the air with Jake into the snow? “Yeah,” he says. “That would be fun.” 

“Good,” Jake says. He pauses, then grabs Brian in a tight hug. “Merry Christmas, Brian.”

Brian freezes. He doesn’t really know what to do. The last time somebody hugged him was Claire for their annual family portraits. As soon as the camera had flashed, they’d separated, eager to get away from each other. For a moment, this hug feels just as uncomfortable as that one. Brian doesn’t know what to do with his arms, and he’s afraid somehow Jake will be able to feel all those strange feelings inside of Brian that he doesn’t understand, but he knows would embarrass him if anybody else knew. 

But then the moment passes, and this hug feels as right as jumping off that slide. And Brian feels just as happy, just as free, and just as brave. And when they part, Brian doesn’t even bother trying to hide his smile.

“Merry Christmas.”


End file.
